Live: Chvches @ The Institute, Birmingham

Last night I had the joy of seeing Scottish indie synthpop trio Chvches at the Institute, Birmingham.

After having their songs on loop for the better part of 4 months, it was finally time to make my way to Birmingham and experience Chvrches, the Glaswegian electro indie-pop trio released that released way back in September The Bones of What You Believe, which in my view was one of the strongest début album of 2013 and has gone on to propel them to new heights.

Before Chvrches hit the stage, the packed out room was treated to the musical styling’s of Bridie Monds-Watson, better known as Soak, a 17-year-old singer songwriter from Derry in Northern Ireland, with portions of the crowd seemingly more intent on talking and jostling for position at the front, than listening to this young talent, she became clearly nervous and needed a couple of songs to get the audience’s attention, but my the time she was onto her 3rd song Lights Out, she had managed to silence a rowdy crowd with a variety of beautifully composed acoustic songs made up of soulful/emotion filled lyrics, perfectly sang in her wonderful Derry accent, which by the end had captivated the room and proved to me that is going places, after all she is already creating one hell of a buzz, with her EP Blud launching on 17th of March and becoming the first signing on the Chvrches own label Goodbye Records, I fully expect to Soak headlining a UK tour pretty damn soon.

Chvrches took to the stage with a bang, blasting out a personal favourite of mine The Mother We Share, getting the crowd in the mood to party, quickly running through some of their biggest anthems, Gun, We Sink and Lungs, mixed in with a few of their slower tempo songs to stop people from tiring themselves out to quickly, with the pint-sized front woman Lauren Mayberry and Synth player Martin Doherty swapping rolls for Under the Tide, before switching back to finish off their set, although Doherty gave as good as he could, it couldn’t compare to Mayberry’s pure star quality and stage presence, something that slightly explains the misconception about Chvrches being just Lauren, in the same vein as Bastille or Iron & Wine.

The set was a constant high, with the more recognizable songs off their album causing the most feverish dancing, sadly after powering their way through most of the 13 tracks on their album, Mayberry declared that they were running out of material, reminding me that this is their first headline tour, though they are on a pretty impressive upward trajectory, going from playing this venue in support of Passion Pit to headlining it in just a year, give them time to produce a second album, to add a bit more variety to their shows and you will end up with something close to a perfect live show.